The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., representing 50,000 individuals and the top 2% of medical and biological engineers

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., representing 50,000 individuals and the top 2% of medical and biological engineers

AIMBE College of Fellows Class of 2014
For pioneering research on understanding and exploiting the coherence and polarization properties of light scattered by biological cells, tissues, and fluids.

Sean Kirkpatrick, chair of biomedical engineering, has been named a Fellow of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. He is one of 69 new Fellows announced by SPIE on Monday, March 4.

Kirkpatrick was chosen for his achievements in theory and application of laser speckle in biomedical fields. In a news release announcing the new Fellows, SPIE said: ” Kirkpatrick has made valuable contributions to research on the interface between the fields of continuum mechanics, tissue mechanics and optics. His primary accomplishments have been in developing both the theoretical basis and practical applications of laser speckle techniques for biomedical imaging and diagnostics. He pioneered the use of laser speckle for understanding soft tissue mechanics and was one of the founders of the field of optical elastography.”

Biomedical engineers need to know engineering inside out. How knowledgeable do they need to be about biological sciences? They need to know at least as much about that fast-moving field too. The biomedical device and biotech industries are evolving so rapidly that it takes the latest engineering skills and a thorough understanding of cutting-edge cell and molecular biology and genetics to meet the demands of biomedical engineering.

That’s what industry leaders told Sean Kirkpatrick when Michigan Technological University’s chair of biomedical engineering talked with them about how Michigan Tech could better meet their needs. And Kirkpatrick listened.

Now he’s rolling out a new biomedical engineering curriculum designed to produce the specialists that the industry needs.

“Biomedical engineers are not generalists,” Kirkpatrick explains. They are rigorously trained engineers who also understand the explosion of new knowledge in the biological sciences and its implications for engineering health-related devices and materials. “

What is AIMBE?

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is the authoritative voice and advocate for the value of medical and biological engineering to society. It is an organization of leaders in medical and biological engineering, consisting of academic, industrial, professional society councils and elected fellows.

AIMBE Fellowbook

Fellowbook Profiles are micro-blogs for each of our Fellows. New stories are added to showcase their accomplishments.